There were some useful topics lately, so I decided to take it to the basics with another relevant question to all of you. What’s the perfect budget? Let’s say we double San Diego’s median household income, and round it up to keep the math easy, say $100,000/year. We have realtors, brokers, financial analysts, CPAs, engineers, mathematicians…you name it…on this forum. What would be the perfect budget for this fictional family?
Keep in mind, I want to see a responsible budget (account for taxes, savings, 401k, school fund for kid/kids….etc).

Here is the input to the problem
– if you don’t like it – use your own parameters

Family: 2 working spouses + 1 child (I don’t know what SD’s average is truly on this)
Household income: $100,000/year gross (yes I could go to $150k but that’s the cream of the crop – a la piggs’ stats)

Some econ trends to be keep in mind:
Regional Upward House Price Pressure on Prices: strong professional high-tech industry, biotech industry, medical centers, lawyers…….not so hot on the construction/RE/financial side nowadays. Another factor is the 20 or 30% of houses are paid off in San Diego (per some report /news I’ve seen lately). Some buyers on the sidelines with cash from selling at the top of the market and waiting for the market to bottom (good cash position)

Regional Downward House Price Pressure on Prices: recession, higher unemployment, mindset in downward market/bad news, zero or negative savings ratio, lower than usual amount of down payments (not counting piggs), gasoline prices, many flippers gone floppers upside-down, ready to walk away/foreclose/short sale…( most likely consumed their savings and maxed out their credit cards in the process).

Tentative of a Perfect Budget:

Yearly Amount Percent Description
$100,000 100 % total household gross income (pretax)
– $15,000 15% 401 K contributions (pretax)
– $1,500 1.5% School Fund (pretax)
_________________________________
$83,500 83.5% total household gross taxable income
– $25,400 30% Fed taxes, State, FICA, etc
_________________________________
$58,100 58.1% total household net income (post tax)

$58.1K year net / 12 months = $4,841 take home / month

Note: this does not include medical insurance for the family….so let’s break this thing down

Mortgage/Rent % amount
HOA % amount
Car Payment % amount (at least 1 car)
Gasoline % amount
Car Maintenance % amount
Babysitter % amount
Food % amount
Cable/Net % amount
Phone % amount
Trash/H2O % amount
MISC % amount
Savings % amount
Emergency % amount

Please fill in the blanks or what’s missing